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Beers from the Top of the Wold

I apologise for the title of this review, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist it!

While researching British gluten free beers for The Brewclub, I first got in contact with the Wold Top Brewery in Driffield on the Yorkshire Wold; their 4.5% ‘Against The Grain’ was Britain’s first gluten free beer and, as I recall I thought it was

So, I figured it was worth investigating a couple of the brewery’s other brews.

You might recall that the Wold Top Brewery sits high on the chalk hills in the east of Yorkshire and they brew beers using (as far as possible) home or locally grown ingredients and water from their own well.

Wold Top is the brewery’s first, and flagship bitter – brewed to 3.7% ABV with Maris Otter and Crystal Hops, and a reasonable slug of Northdown hops this should make an excellent session beer.

As you can see, it pours with a rich, dark golden colour and white head. The nose is aromatic and the flavour is crisp and clean. As such it would make an excellent session beer, if my local stocked it I would be quite happy… however (and it’s a small however) the flavour of this Yorkshire bitter only serves to remind me of the heritage that the classic brewers are maintaining with their ‘Yorkshire Square’ brewing techniques – this is a good bitter and worthy of three stars, but it’s not a classic ‘Yorkshire Bitter’.